I am writing to respectfully request that you vote No on the proposed Overland Music Festival agreement.

It’s hard for me to make an argument when the truth seems so obvious, and so I ask you, again respectfully, but also incredulously:

How can you even consider this proposal? And with a five year commitment?

Overland Golf Course is not a concert venue, and it is supposed to be a legally protected and publicly owned resource, part of Denver’s Golf Enterprise Fund. Its facilities and golf revenues are to be used for golf purposes, not for other purposes.

During the past 10 years, Denver’s parks have been changing from being protected public green spaces and becoming venues for rent to business, starting in the Hickenlooper Administration, then enthusiastically accelerated by the Hancock Administration. Our mayors have placed commercial businesses’ interests above public access to our parks: they have traded irreplaceable park land for a commercial building, approved operation of an industrial facility in a park, and repeatedly approved multi-day commercial events in our parks.

Today you have AEG, SuperFly, and the Hancock Administration turning themselves into pretzels to address the issues that arise every time someone plants a multi-day event in a public greenspace park: access, noise, facilities, impact on the park, impact on the neighborhood. It will take weeks to haul it all in, then haul it all out and repair the damage. The neighbors will simply have to live through it. Rather than repeating this experiment at the expense of Overland Golf Course and the adjacent neighborhoods, please put your efforts and our resources into providing the right facility for this type of event and preserve our parks. Let’s work toward development of a Festival Park and Event Center, where multi-day events can be easily managed, back-to-back, as many as you want: a facility with ample parking, access to public transportation and cyclists; comfort facilities, including water, restrooms, and first-aid stations; stages and amplified sound management.

Residents of our neighborhoods value our parks as the precious treasure they are. In close city neighborhoods, while occasionally we can afford the time and expense to enjoy the mountains, in our every day lives we rely on the parks. Our parks are our back yards, where our children learn to ride a bike, play soccer, play golf (thank you First Tee), explore water, see birds, and enjoy a picnic. We know that, once given up to development for a school, an industrial facility for the Zoo, or for constant commercial events, parks can never be recreated. Our parks are like the frog in the pot, who eventually dies as the water boils. Let us not lose Denver’s great American legacy of parks through thoughtless dispensation of irreplaceable park land for short-term expediency and commercial profit.

Please vote NO on the Overland Music Festival. Please work to provide Denver a world-class Festival Park and Event Center.

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The City and County of Denver and Saunders Construction are hosting a community open house to share updates on the redesign of City Park Golf Course. There will be stations with information on the following aspects[...]

Councilman Rafael Espinoza has been vocal about his concerns about the project.
“This is a colossal misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money that could be addressing a whole bunch of stormwater needs citywide,” Espinoza said in an interview. “While I think there is a nice and beautiful and more playable way of doing what we’re doing today, yes, I don’t object to the concept.”
That is, using the golf course for detention might be OK — just not like this.
“I do object to the way we’re using city funds and creating projects that aren’t necessary and building projects that aren’t necessary for this city, but are necessary for the interstate and confusing the two,” Espinoza said.
There are also questions as to whether the City Park Golf Course renovations will even see the light of day with multiple lawsuits against the project. Espinoza questioned how much the design process is costing the city for a project that could be halted by the court. Read more →

What does it say about our city and the value of its commitments when in one breath our mayor can pledge long term stewardship of the Denver Press Club building and in the next sacrifice City Park Golf Course to redevelopment for drainage? City Park Friends and Neighbors believe Denver can do better and we urge the Hancock Administration to meet the commitment it made to preserve and protect City Park Golf Course. Read more →